ABSTRACT
Prince Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky, Stiva, is a typical entitled hedonist. He is a thirty-four-year-old man struggling to avoid the narcissistic injuries of aging and of no longer being the adulated first-born son. Through his knowledge and the power of his wealth, Stiva is able to create and orchestrate the perfect meal. He recaptures a sense of the original narcissistic perfection for his self-representation by being able to make the perfect maternal object responsive to him. The non-pejorative identification of the defensive relationship is a central analytic task with patients considered narcissistic personality disorders. The externalization of superego function is a frequent characteristic of narcissistic personality disorders and complements their ego attitudes of entitlement. All narcissistic personality disorders are dependent on their external world to some degree. They all relate to that external world as a potential source of the admiration upon which they feel the integrity of their ego organization depends.
